Articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics.
About Asa Biggs
Record #:
38849
Author(s):
Abstract:
Asa Biggs, a native of Williamston, NC, read law and was admitted to the bar in 1831. He served in the NC House of Commons and State Senate. He was elected to the US Senate in 1855, appointed as Judge of the US District Court for North Carolina in 1858 and was appointed a member of the North Carolina Secession Convention in 1861. Biggs served as Confederate Judge in North Carolina from 1861 to 1865. After the Civil War he began his law practice in Tarboro, NC and in 1869 he joined 108 other North Carolina lawyers making a formal protest against improper interference in political matters and judicial activism by the judges of the NC Supreme Court. The Chief Justice held them for contempt for publicly expressing their criticisms and stipulated any lawyer who signed the protest could practice in the Court until they apologized. Asa Biggs refused to recant and being in financial straits after the war,
moved to Norfolk, VA, where in continued his law practice and went into the merchantile business with his brother Kedar Biggs. Interesting that his Norfolk law partner, William Nathan Harrell Smith, later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Source:
Subject(s):